{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/famines-realm",
 "title": "Famine’s Realm",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 17,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20",
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
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 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 50,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 2
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To him in whom the love of Nature has",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imperfectly supplanted the desire",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And dread necessity of food, your shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your sunny level, from Tamaletown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where the Pestuary’s fragrant slime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With dead dogs studded, bears its azure fleet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broods the still menace of starvation. Bones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men and women bleach along the ways",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pampered vultures sleep upon the trees.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a land of death, and Famine there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Holds sovereignty; though some there be her sway",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who challenge, and intrenched in larders live,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drawing their sustentation from abroad.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But woe to him, the stranger! He shall die",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As die the early righteous in the bud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And promise of their prime. He, venturesome",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To penetrate the wilds rectangular",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Frequented of the bee and of the blithe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From human habitation and is lost",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And (careless man! deeming God’s providence",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Extends so far) he has not wherewithal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bate its urgency. Then, lo! appears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A restaurant⁠—mealery⁠—a place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where poison battles famine, and the two,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like fish-hawks warring in the upper sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that which one has taken from the deep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Manage between them to dispatch the prey.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He enters and leaves hope behind. There ends",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His history. Anon his bones, clean-picked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By buzzards (with the bones himself had picked,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all felonious and deadlywise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Devices of the Enemy of Souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Planted along the ways of life to snare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man’s mortal and immortal part alike,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Oakland restaurant is chief. It lives",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That man may die. It flourishes that life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May wither. Its foundation stones repose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On human hearts and hopes. I’ve seen in it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crabs stewed in milk and salad offered up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With dressing so unholily compound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it included flour and sugar! Yea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve eaten dog there!⁠—dog, as I’m a man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the pen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scrawls a tortured “Finis” on the page.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}